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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27493267">My beloved, do you know</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting'>samariumwriting</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Established Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Optimistic Ending, Post-Canon, Unrequited Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:43:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,091</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27493267</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The King is dead, they said, and Felix's life fell apart.</p><p>-</p><p>For years, Felix and Dedue have been at Dimitri's side in their own ways. When he's gone, there's a gap no one else can fill, and they have to work how to carry on.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd &amp; Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Felix Hugo Fraldarius &amp; Dedue Molinaro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>My beloved, do you know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Good luck with this one folks, it hit me like a ton of bricks</p><p>Title is based on Beloved by VNV Nation, the version I listened to is the 2015 version from Resonance</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The King is dead, they said, and Felix's life fell apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn't a surprise. Felix was at his side that night, after all, listening to his wheezing breaths, watching the stutter in his flickering eyelids. Dimitri was sick, almost impossibly so, and the whisper on the wind was that he wouldn't last until morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Felix hadn't believed it. He'd snapped at... whoever suggested he should say his final goodbyes. He told Dimitri goodnight, told him he'd be back in the morning, and squeezed his hand one final time. Dimitri couldn't reply, but that had been the case for days; Felix wasn't expecting one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He'd decided that Dimitri would still be alive in the morning, so he knew that he would be. But he woke to the mournful tolling of bells and he knew. He'd missed his final chance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn't know if the feeling that filled him was anger or despair, or emptiness, or unending hopelessness. He didn't know if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted </span>
  </em>
  <span>to know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He went to the training grounds and picked up a sword. The staff who attended the area seemed surprised to see him, and far less surprised when he snapped at them to leave. He slashed at the post in front of him until his right arm burned from his fingertips to his shoulder, and then he swapped to his left hand and did it all over again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sweat that ran from his brow had long since dried up by the time he heard the door's handle turning once more. A faint haze had settled over his mind, mixed with the dangerous heat of his skin and the morbid direction of his thoughts. Whoever this was, it couldn't be anyone he wanted to see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only person he wanted to see ever again was Dimitri.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Felix turned to snarl at whoever it was to leave him alone. Nothing could be important enough to interrupt him here. But when he opened his mouth, the words didn't fall out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was Dedue, his long hair pulled up in a loose, haphazard ponytail, shadows marking his face and eyes tinged red. "Duke Fraldarius," he said, his voice coming out as something more akin to a croak.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two could play at that game. "Your Majesty," he replied. Never in his life had he bowed to either of them, but this time he dipped his head in a stiff gesture.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dedue sighed; just as he'd expected. There was no grim sense of satisfaction - Felix couldn't help but be disappointed in himself. "The staff informed me you were here," he said. "I wondered if you would like to-" He cut off with a slightly choked sound. Felix had only ever had the </span>
  <em>
    <span>pleasure </span>
  </em>
  <span>of seeing Dedue cry on his wedding day; this was everything short of a joy. "The body rests in our chambers."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His nod was short, sharp. He didn't want to see the body. "I'll stay here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You-" Dedue sighed again. Turned on his heel. "As you wish. You know where I will be."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did, just as Dedue had with him. Dedue would be at Dimitri's side, mourning a cold corpse that could no longer hear his cries. Useless. Pitiful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Felix probably wasn't much different, aimlessly swinging a sword at a post like the world would end tomorrow. But the world was already over, so it didn't matter anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn't making any sense. Maybe it was time to put his sword away.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>The days went by, as they tended to do. Felix still moved through a thick, dark fog, no more light to be found.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He got up early in the morning, shaken awake by shivering and intense, sparking pain through his body; a legacy of his nights, plagued by spectres with golden hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He ate a meagre breakfast and went to the training ground. Worked himself until dark spots appeared in front of his eyes, at which point he took a break for lunch. If he could stand after that, he went back to training. When he couldn't—which was often, because his bones weren't as young as they used to be—he tried to snatch some more sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Normally, he spent most of the afternoon staring into nothingness. Maybe out of the window, at the ramparts he and Dimitri used to clamber over as children. Maybe at the ceiling of the Duke's quarters, patterned with stars that he and Dimitri used to trace over and over with their fingertips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes he stared over towards the desk, where he wrote unsent resignation letters over and over. Or at the couch, where he and Dimitri sometimes took their tea. Where Dimitri crushed Felix’s dreams and made himself the luckiest man alive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Felix didn't like thinking about that one, but his mind returned to it over and over. The day Dimitri told him he would marry Dedue. The day Dimitri took his future happiness into his own hands, face glowing with excitement and anxiety in equal measure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Felix had smiled too. He wanted Dimitri to be happy, and happy he had been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now he was gone, and Felix was left with the cold memory of everything that could have been but never was. Happiness he would never, ever gain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was hard. Felix had mourned before - he'd mourned a whole family worth of corpses, mourned old classmates and comrades, staff members and knights and everyone under the sun. But he'd never mourned </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>sun, and now he did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was impossible. He'd swallowed a sword, somewhere down the line. Nothing else could hurt this badly. Nothing could bring him to tears with every breath, or fill his mind with an unending hopelessness. This was </span>
  <em>
    <span>it. </span>
  </em>
  <span>This was the way he would feel for the rest of his life.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>There was a funeral, eventually. Dedue shouldered the front of the coffin with his left shoulder. He was the focus of the day: the remaining King, ploughing on while dressed in mourning. The crown rested heavy on his head, Felix knew, and the dour look on his face reminded him of the years Dedue spent at Dimitri's back rather than his side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Felix bore the coffin on his right shoulder. It weighed him down into the ground, his feet only moving from the force of all the eyes on him. He was not the focus of the day, nor should he be. He was just the King's right hand, sword and shield (but mostly pen and wit). He was not a lover; for a long time, he was barely even a friend. He was not there in the darkest hours, merely a herald to the dawn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn't stop him from feeling as if his insides had been cleaved out. In the end, he'd never seen the body. His last memory of his King, his friend, his-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dimitri's hand in his, and shadows under his eyes. The rattle of difficult breaths in his chest. A face that looked so much older than it should. That was how Felix couldn't help but remember him, even as he tried to see everything else. He wanted to think about sunshine in golden hair and a blue eye alight with mirth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wanted to think about warm, calloused hands holding his, whispering sweet nothings Felix had never and never would hear. But that was something he never had the right to receive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Felix didn't speak at the service. Dedue had asked him if he wanted to, as his oldest friend. Felix didn't remember what he'd said in reply - something about having nothing to say, or at least nothing that anyone wanted to hear. Something about speaking in front of crowds, of not wanting others to see how much it hurt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dedue stood at the front of the cathedral and poured his heart out instead. Felix couldn't help but wonder if, maybe, Dedue was trying to get out of it by asking. Maybe Felix should have said yes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dimitri would have wanted him to say yes. He would have wanted him to stand there instead of Dedue, while Dedue had the time and space to mourn in the front row with small noises into an embroidered handkerchief. But Dimitri wasn't here, and Felix </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and if Dedue wanted something he should just ask for it and Felix probably would have given it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Dimitri always wanted Dedue to have the world, and Felix was little more than an extension of his will. He liked it that way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He failed at that in Dimitri's life and in his death, he supposed, but at least he wasn't breaking the habit of a lifetime.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cries of mourners Dimitri had never known filled his ears when they laid the coffin down to rest. The flowers never ended. The words poured endlessly forward. The procession moved from the grave back to the castle halls, where they held a solemn dinner. More words, more sobs. Felix, staring soundlessly into space, unable to articulate everything in his mind. Unwilling to - it would only strike a nail of certainty into something Dedue had probably suspected for years.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that was when Felix realised: Dedue had vanished.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn't exactly blame him for it - it wasn't like this was easy. But this was one of the most important days when it came to Dimitri's legacy, and Dedue was just... gone. The remaining King had never enjoyed politics, and always claimed he had no flare for it, but Felix knew better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a reason that Dedue had gone, and that wasn't because he hated politics or keeping up an appearance. If he'd disappeared, he truly felt he had no other choice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Years of serving the royal couple told Felix exactly where Dedue would be. When he felt overwhelmed, there was only one place he went, his one safe harbour in a world of hurt: Dimitri.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The graveyard was far quieter now in the dark of night than it had been when they joined the other mourners here. Only the soft sound of leaves rustling against branches and...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, Felix had been expecting this anyway. The quiet sound of Dedue's tears was no surprise, nor was it hard to follow them to Dimitri's grave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You'll catch cold out here, you know," Felix said, much harsher words left unspoken on his tongue. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He can't hear you. He wouldn't care. He'd want you to be better than this. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Some elements were true, others not, and speaking them would be of no benefit anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I do not think I particularly care," came the answer, Dedue's voice thick with tears. Felix wanted to feel bad for him, but he didn't think he could feel much worse anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He'd care."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I know. But he is not here anymore, and he cannot tell me off for it. I will do what I wish to remember him."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something akin to rage rose in Felix's chest. How </span>
  <em>
    <span>dare </span>
  </em>
  <span>Dedue dismiss his husband's wishes like that? How dare he cast aside the will of the man he loved? But he didn't put the words into the chill air. He couldn't. "Come inside."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a demand. An order, perhaps. But Felix couldn't order this King around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He'd been able to give Dimitri orders, a handful of times. Look after your health, watch out for that posture, make sure Dedue sees you well. None of it mattered in the end. He was still dead. He'd still left the pair of them here, mourning over the best man either of them ever knew.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I will not go back to the dinner," Dedue said, his sigh heavy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Neither will I, then."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a long night, and neither of them said much at all. Felix was glad for the silence in his head.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>"He can't tell you're tending to him." It was the eighth time that week that Felix had found Dedue at the graveside. He could barely even fathom what Dedue found to do here - it was just a stone. There were a lot of flowers, still, but they'd decrease with time, as people ceased to remember their late King.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Faerghus had a steady population count these days. Felix had never been much good with numbers, but he'd worked out how long it would be before more people did not know Dimitri than did. He wished he hadn't.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I can," Dedue replied, "and I wish to be here, at his side. As I always was, and as I promised to be."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Through sickness and health, 'till death do us part. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Felix had echoed the words a hundred thousand times in his head. He used to fantasise about them as a child, about the way they'd sound on his tongue. The way Dimitri's mouth would curve into the tiniest of smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dimitri had smiled widely, in the end, when Dedue spoke those words. It was a happy moment, one that contained none of the resonance it did now, with a man hunched over a stone that could not and would not watch over him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Felix didn't say any of that. "Vows tend to expire on death, you know."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Perhaps to you," Dedue said. They did not expire on death for Felix, either. He was still here, after all. Still cleaning up the royal messes, still chewing out the council.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes, they invoked Dimitri's name. Felix put a stop to it every time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They did not invoke Dedue's, not even in his absence. There were some things that not even the council dared do, and Felix wished he could learn how to shift those lines so he never had to hear Dimitri's name through gritted teeth ever again.</span>
</p><p><span>"The girl in the kitchen misses you," he tried. There were so many things that Dedue used to do. Unlike Felix, he was not</span> <span>defined solely by his relationship to Dimitri. There were other people who noted and cared for his presence in their lives.</span></p><p>
  <span>Dedue no longer stopped in the castle kitchens for breakfast, nor did he fetch tea for the afternoon. Not without anyone to share it with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dedue paused. "Did she say as much?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Right to my face." Felix attempted a chuckle. It sounded wrong, but at least he tried.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I imagine she was terrified."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not of me." </span>
  <em>
    <span>Just for you. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Felix was pretty sure everyone with an inch of compassion in their heart was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dedue paused again. He'd always struck Felix as a cautious, measured kind of person, but he took a lot of time to do anything these days. Felix understood the feeling. "Perhaps I will go to her this evening," he said, "though I would hate to-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I will come for tea in your quarters," Felix decided. He had never had tea with Dedue alone before. Neither of them had been without Dimitri before. There was a first time for everything, and he supposed not all of those things had to be bad.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Felix stared at the papers in front of him. He didn't understand. Missives had been sent out all across Fodlan with the announcement of Dimitri's death, and yet-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>'To the Royal King of Faerghus, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd,' it read. Even seeing his name set Felix's heart racing, and the words of the letter itself made him feel no better. 'We thank you again for your kind donation. We know it took rather a long time to respond, but this time of year is always rather hectic, and the children demand our near constant attention.'</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An orphanage, clearly. Because Dimitri's heart never stopped reaching out. He loved and cared for everyone, and that never seemed to dry up. He gave out pieces of himself to everyone he ever came into contact with, until there was nothing left at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Felix had been the opposite, he supposed, full of anger and never enough care. He still had all the parts of himself, except the bit he gave to Dimitri.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dimitri gave his heart to the world, and Felix gave Dimitri the heart he took to the grave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're drifting away," Dedue said. Felix startled, his thoughts coming abruptly back to what was real. He blinked, and the ghost of Dimitri that lurked in his mind faded into the background once more. "You were thinking of him."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"This letter is to him," Felix explained. Another poor soul who hadn't realised what had been cut so cruelly short. Felix couldn't really feel sorry for them, but he didn't envy the person who would eventually deliver the news. "It's from an orphanage."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dedue's expression softened. "May I have it?" he asked, as if Felix could ever refuse him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"If you can handle it," he said, holding it close to his chest. It was a precious part of a world that no longer existed, and Felix wanted to take the optimism the letter was written with for himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew he couldn't, because if there was one thing he always told Dimitri it was that he should never live in the past. Felix was nothing but a hypocrite, but he could perhaps manage to let this fantasy go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dedue smiled softly at the words on the page where Felix had frowned. He supposed it wasn't so bad if it didn't come as a shock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes returned to the papers in front of him. The words were a little harder to focus on than before, but Dedue had stopped him short of the ache that would surely have developed behind his eyes. He supposed he could be grateful for that, though he wouldn't say as much. He could show it another way, and Dedue wouldn't expect anything more.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>It wasn't unusual, these days, to find Dedue in the graveyard. In fact, it was more common than not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That said, people didn't tend to expect it. So when the stablemaster asked where his Majesty was, Felix only just stopped himself short of saying 'the graveyard'; there was no knowing how the words would be interpreted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, he let out a weary sigh and informed the man that he would fetch him soon. Hopefully Dedue wasn't feeling too obstinate that day, because the stablemaster went home to his children in the evening and there was only an hour before sunset.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The path was well-worn by now, and Felix could almost make out the repeated prints of Dedue's boots and his own in the dirt. Even now, only a handful of moons after Dimitri's passing, people had begun to let the grave turn into just another stone. Felix didn't know if he was thankful or not for the quiet that granted him when he went to fetch the remaining King.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The stablemaster is asking after you," Felix greeted. It had always been his nature to be direct, at least when it had nothing to do with him. Dimitri and Dedue had both become used to it in time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He can wait," Dedue answered, his voice heavy, yet not scratchy. Felix didn't know if that meant he was early enough to prevent tears or too late to pull him out of melancholy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He has children to return to," Felix reminded him. There were two of them; he'd met them, once or twice, before Dimitri realised that the stablemaster's duties were cutting into the time he spent at home. The children used to come up at sunset to bring him his dinner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Of course," Dedue said, but his voice was still far away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Whatever he needs, he requires your presence." This time, there was no response. "And he will leave within the hour. You should go to him sooner rather than later."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was mundane. Stupid, even, to concern himself with a matter such as this. But that wasn't what it was about. It was about Dedue, unable to tear himself away from a stone that could not see nor hear. A stone that would wear away with the passage of time no matter how often Dedue brought the finest flowers from his garden.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From the garden they used to share. He saw them there every day. He wondered how Dedue could stand it; Felix hadn't entered the hall he and Dimitri used to spar in since the doctor delivered the news that Dimitri would likely never rise again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Dedue still didn't reply, Felix tried another tactic. "I will drag you from here," he threatened. His muscles were not as young as they used to be, and Dedue had always towered above him, but they both knew he could do it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He'd warned Dedue about it before, but he was yet to try. In response to his words, Dedue deflated a little. "You do not need to," he said. His fingers traced the outline of the Blaiddyd Crest on Dimitri's headstone for a moment, and then he pulled away. "Thank you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was not the first time it happened, and it would not be the last. In fact, it became a routine of sorts. Felix would work, and when he took a break, he'd go to the graveyard. He'd remind Dedue of the way ghosts tended to linger, and Dedue would come away from his vigil. They'd get back to work, and Dedue would catch Felix staring out at the tower he and Dimitri used to race up on the morning of the first snow of the season.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was gentle, regular. The ever-present reminders of the man who lived in this place for longer than either of them never went away, and they didn't get easier to bear. But the two of them continued nonetheless.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>"You loved him," Dedue said. They were eating together, as they often did these days. Felix didn’t know why he chose that day specifically to tear open the wound in his heart that never healed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Felix took a moment to pick over the food on his plate. He understood, now, how Dimitri had taken so little pleasure in food. A different cause, perhaps, but it was hard to find joy in something that gave life after all he’d lost. "I did. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He</span>
  </em>
  <span> loved you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dedue let out a short sigh. "I still do."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I still love him." Felix’s words came out half choked. He spent years hiding this from everyone it mattered to most. It didn't leave his lips easier now that Dimitri's were cold and still. "I still love him."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is it any easier for you? To love him, to lose him?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Did the man who was never loved in return find it easier to mourn? Was it easier to miss something he never had? Did he have any claim to the feelings Dedue carried on his shoulders? "I don't know. I don't think so."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dedue's hands reached across the table. He didn't take Felix's, but he came close. Felix wanted him to shout, to scream, to send him far away from the castle, to never speak of or think about his husband again. He wanted there to be some kind of punishment that he didn't make for himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Dedue never got angry outwardly. Dedue was kind, and caring, and even if he hated Felix with the passion of a thousand suns he would never say a word. So Felix would remain, half out in the cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It is hard to know what of him to let go," Dedue said instead, deepening the pit in Felix's chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't think I will," he admitted. He'd hold every moment close until the day he died. He didn't know if that was what Dimitri would want, didn't know if he should even care. It wasn't like Dimitri would know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Felix would. He would know, and it would feel like a betrayal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence, for a while. There was a lot of silence between two people who never should have had anything to say to each other. "You are a good man, Felix," Dedue said, and Felix hoped that one day he’d believe him.</span>
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  <em>
    <span>After his coronation, Dimitri assumed the throne of the Kingdom of Faerghus, Dedue ever at his side. Before long, they were married, leading Faerghus justly and putting extraordinary effort into overcoming the history of betrayal and oppression with Duscur to reach a reconciliation. At their side every step of the way was Duke Felix Fraldarius, right-hand adviser to the kings. When Dimitri finally fell to illness, their combined grief wrapped the castle in a shroud of mourning. Yet, with time, the pair only became closer, and as their years drew to a close, some said that - if the time was right - you could catch them smiling in each other's company.</span>
  </em>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for suffering all the way to the end! If you have Feelings like I do, please consider leaving kudos/a comment</p><p>I have a twitter over at @samariumwriting, I talk about writing and other things (and I swear I normally write happier things than this)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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